Russian Ballet
Ballet developed out of the court spectacles of the Renaissance and the subsequent French ballet de cour, in which social dances performed by royalty and aristocracy were presented in harmony with music, speech, verse, song, pageant, decor, and costume.
After some years of decline in dance standards in the 17th century, Louis XIV of France (1638-1715), a great devotee of dancing himself, in his concern to "reestablish the dance in its true perfection," established the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661.
The century that followed saw great advances in technical standards of ballet dancing and a new concern with ballet as a vehicle of drama, ballet became a grand theatrical form like opera, performed in opera houses, as often it still is today; many operas contained ballet divertissements (suites of ballet numbers used as interludes).
With the introduction of pointework (position of balance on extreme tip of toe) to the dance vocabulary, the ballerina became a supreme or ideal stage figure. After the widespread enthusiasm for the Romantic ballet between 1830 and 1850, however, artistic standards declined except in Russia and Denmark.
Petipa in particular helped to bring academic ballet to a new height in St. Petersburg in the last decades of the century, producing, to Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's music, such enduring classics of the repertory as The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake.
The 20th century saw Russia spreading ballet across the Western world to enormous acclaim and influence. Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), supreme ballerina, toured the world for 20 years; and the Ballets Russes of Sergey Diaghilev (1872-1929), appearing in Europe for the last 20 years of his life, brought a new intensity of collaboration between choreographer, designer, and composer.
Diaghilev's influence on artists and audiences was immense. His main choreographers – Mikhail Fokine (1880-1942), Vaslav Nijinsky (1888-1950), and George Balanchine (1904-83) – all made major contributions to his work of revitalizing and redefining the art of ballet. (EncBr)
EXERCISE 5. (a) Read the text (535 words) and (b) answer the questions supplied below. (c) Write a 300-word item for a newspaper about Nureyev. §§ 79.4
Rudolf Nureyev
The ovation at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris began even before the curtain went up. Simply the announcement of his name threw the audience into a frenzy. When he stepped onstage he was greeted with a burst of applause that went on for half a minute; after he danced he took 30 curtain calls. It was 1961, and Rudolf Nureyev was giving his first performance in the West after his defection.
Nureyev was born in 1938 on a train, speeding along the banks of Lake Baikal near Mongolia — a fitting start to a life that would be forever on the move. His mother was on her way to join his father, a soldier. Eventually the family settled in Ufa, a remote provincial capital. “My chief memory is of hunger — consistent hunger,” he wrote in an autobiographical account. His first glimpse of ballet came during a New Year’s Eve performance by the local ballet troupe, an event that turned his heart and mind irrevocably toward dancing. He studied with local teachers, but he couldn’t begin serious training until he was 17, when he finally managed to get himself to the Kirov Ballet School in Leningrad.
Nureyev bolted for freedom in June 1961, as the Kirov waiting at Le Bourget airport outside Paris to board a flight for London. His French performances had been received with great enthusiasm, so when the company director told him he was not flying to London after all — he was being summoned home to dance at the Kremlin — he knew the authorities feared he would defect. Two French police inspectors were standing nearby. He rushed into their arms and gasped, “I want to stay!”
For the next three decades, he danced — virtually nonstop, as if his childhood deprivations had made him ravenous for movement. He toured with ballet companies and pickup troupes, he devoured the classics and then went on to such contemporary masters as Martha Graham, Paul Taylor and George Balanchine. He turned to choreography and restaged such classics as “Swan Lake” and “Sleeping Beauty” to give greater glory to the male roles.
He never made a permanent home with any company, although after an electrifying appearance with the staid and gracious Royal Ballet in “Giselle” he became a longtime guest artist with the troupe. For six years he directed the Paris Opera Ballet; even then, he continued dancing. His history-making partnership with Margot Fonteyn, crown jewel of Britain’s Royal Ballet and 18 years his senior, exemplified the new order at its most exalted.
[In October 1992], after the premiére of a new production of “La Bayadère” he had choreographed for the Paris Opera Ballet, he stepped onstage for the last time. Rumors that he was sick with AIDS had been circulating for years; now he was so frail he had to be supported by two dancers. But the moment he appeared the stage was bombarded with flowers, and the theatre rang with cheers and applause that didn’t let up for a full 10 minutes. (Newsweek 18.01.1993)
1. What was unusual about the birth of Rudol’f Nureyev?
2. When and how did Rudol’f move to the West?
3. When did the boy have his first glimpse of ballet?
4. When did he start his serious training? Where was it?
5. Where did he dance after his defection?
6. What were his innovations in choreography when he turned to staging ballets?
7. Where was his a permanent home?
8. How long did he direct the Paris Opera Ballet?
9. What was peculiar about his history-making partnership with Margot Fonteyn?
10. What did he die of?
EXERCISE 6. Find in the original text about Rudolph Nureyev the counterparts of these Russian words and phrases.
oвации <> поднялся занавес <> привести зрителей в неистовство <> встретить громом аплодисментов <> вызывать аплодисментами на сцену <> прожить в вечном движении <> служить в армии <> отдаленный административный центр провинции <> постоянный голод <> бесповоротно повернули его разум и сердце к танцу <> вырвался на свободу <> труппа Кировского балетного театра <> аэропорт Ле Бурже <> встречены с огромным энтузиазмом <> танцевать без перерывов <> бесконечно жадный до движения <> труппы, создаваемые на короткое время <> обратиться к постановочной деятельности <> заново прочесть классические произведения <> придать новый блеск мужским партиям <> достояние истории <> премьера новой постановки <> ступить на сцену последний раз <> приветственные крики зала.
EXERCISE 7. Translate these sentences into English. § 79.4
MODEL: Вечером у вас «Кармен-сюита» в Мариинском. =>
In the evening you’ll have Carmen Suit in the Mariinsky Theater, Roland Petit’s one-act ballet to music by G. Bizet and R. Shchedrin.
1. Мы купили вам два билета на «Баядерку» в театр Мусоргского.
2. В этот день есть только «Шопениана» в Консерватории.
3. В театре «Эрмитаж» в четверг «Дон Кихот».
4. В этот день в Мариинском идет «Эсмеральда».
5. Вечером советуем вам сходить на «Конька-Горбунка».
6. Мы вам заказали билеты на «Жар-птицу».
7. Можно еще купить билеты на «Петрушку».
8. Нам удалось купить билеты в Мариинский, там в этот вечер «Корсар».
9. В театре «Эрмитаж» «Щелкунчик» не идет, только «Лебединое озеро».
10. К сожалению, «Спартак» отменили и будет «Спящая красавица».
EXERCISE 8. (a) Translate this extract into Russian paying special attention to the way of presentation of cultural proper names (spelling and marking) both in English and in Russian. (b) Comment on it. § 79.4; 21
A.N. Benois (1870-1960) began his career (c. 1901) at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, as scenic designer for the ballets Sylvia and Cupid's Revenge. When the Diaghilev Ballets Russes opened in 1909, Benois designed decor and costumes for, among others, Les Sylphides (1909), Giselle (1910), and Petrushka (1911), on which he collaborated with Igor Stravinsky. His later works include grand designs for La Valse (1929, Ida Rubinstein Company), The Nutcracker (1940, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo), and Graduation Ball, for which he also wrote the libretto (1957, London Festival Ballet). Among his writings are Reminiscences of the Ballet Russe (1941) and Memoirs (1960). (EncBr)
EXERCISE 9. (a) Read this article from the Encyclopedia Britannica. (b) Translate the text into Russian and answer the questions given below. (c) Comment on the spelling of Russian-culture xenonyms. (d) Speak of the different ways of reference to «могучая кучка». (See § 79.4; §58)
The Five: also called “The Russian Five”, or “The Mighty Five”, Russian ‘Moguchaya Kuchka’ ("Mighty Group"), group of five composers who, in about 1875, united in their efforts to create a truly national school of Russian music: Cesar Cui, Aleksandr Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. It was the critic Vladimir Stasov who proudly proclaimed in his review in 1867 that Russia, too, had its own "mighty little heap" (moguchaya kuchka) of native composers.
Centered in St. Petersburg, the members of The Five are often considered to have been a rival faction to the more cosmopolitan, Moscow-centred composers such as Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, although Tchaikovsky often used actual folk songs in his music and Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov emphasized traditional European training in their work. Precursors of The Five were Mikhail Glinka and Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky. They were succeeded by a less-energetic generation including Anatoly Lyadov, Sergey Taneyev, and Aleksandr Glazunov. (EncBr)
1. How can you account for so many variants of the name Могучая кучка?
2. Why is the variant ‘The Five’ the preferred one?
3. What is the origin of this unusual name – Moguchaya Kuchka?
4. Where did the members of the group reside?
5. Who were ‘the precursers’ of the group?
6. What can be said about the talent of their successors?
EXERCISE 10. Translate this text into English. § 79.4
Творческое содружество пяти русских композиторов - Балакирев, Бородин, Кюи, Мусоргский и Римский-Корсаков - сложилось в конце 50-х - начале 60-х гг. XIX века. Их называли Балакиревским кружком, а название «Могучая кучка» было впервые употреблено в 1867 году критиком Стасовым, который был их рупором и идеологом. Все они были любителями и находились под влиянием славянофилов и народников. Западных любителей музыки более всего привлекают экзотические сюжеты их произведений - восточная фантазия «Исламей» Балакирева, симфоническая картина «В Средней Азии» Бородина, сюита «Шахерезада» Римского-Корсакова и, пожалуй, самое популярное произведение – «Половецкие танцы» из оперы Бородина «Князь Игорь». Деятельность членов «Могучей кучки» протекала в Петербурге, и группа просуществовала до середины 1870-х гг.
EXERCISE 11. Imagine that you are abroad as an interpreter of a Russian opera company. You’ve been asked to address the audience with a short (300 words) introduction. Prepare a comprehensive historical 10-minute introduction to one of these operas. § 79.4
Prince Igor’
Khovanshchina
Boris Godunov
Mazepa
Decembrists
Pskovityanka
Tsarskaya nevesta (Tsar’s Bride)
Ivan Susanin (Life for the Tsar).
Painting
EXERCISE 12. Translate into English the Russian parts of the text. §§ 79.4
I. Передвижники, group of Russian painters who in the second half of the 19th century rejected the restrictive and foreign-inspired classicism of the Russian Academy to form a new realist and nationalist art that would serve the common man. Believing that art should be useful, a vehicle for expressing humanitarian and social ideals, they produced realistic portrayals of inspiring or pathetic subjects from Russian middle-class and peasant life in a literal, easily understood style. Forming a «Товарищество передвижных художественных выставок» in 1870, they organized mobile exhibitions of their works in an effort to bring serious art to the people. The most prominent Russian artists of the 1870s and 1880s, including Ivan Kramskoy, Ilya Repin, Vasily Surikov , Vasily Perov, and Vasily Vereshchagin, belonged to this group. The movement dominated Russian art for nearly 30 years and was the model for the социалистический реализм of the Soviet Union. (EncBr)
II. In 1870 a number of talented painters broke away from the Academy of Fine Arts as a reaction against its deadening influence reflecting the history of a series of school struggles: славянофилы against западники. They founded the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, colloquially known as Передвижники. It was headed by Ivan Kramskoi. The Association counted the most talented and innovative painters among its members. Among the most popular themes introduced by Передвижники were landscape, a gallery of national portrait and historical paintings. Russian history found a passionate chronicler in Vasilii Surikov (1848-1916) with his famous canvases «Утро стрелецкой казни», «Боярыня Морозова», «Покорение Сибири Ермаком», «Переход Суворова через Альпы». Il’ya Repin was one of the most talented and versatile painters with his successful works Volga «Бурлаки на Волге», Under Conveyance, «Не ждали» They Didn’t Expect Him. Soon after the Revolution, in 1923, the Передвижники movement ceased to exist. It was succeeded by the officially recognized Socialist Realism of the Soviet period.
EXERCISE 13.
(a) Translate this text into English making use of the previous texts and of the Key. (b) Write a 50-word item for an encyclopedia. § 79.4
Передвижничество как направление в русской живописи возникло в 1870 году по инициативе художника И. Крамского. Передвижники стали выразителями демократических идей в противовес официальной Академии художеств. Своё название движение получило от Товарищества Передвижных Художественных Выставок. Передвижники находились под сильным влиянием разночинцев, народников и славянофилов. Темы для своих картин передвижники черпали из русской природы, русской истории и из жизни простых людей. Отсюда и названия их картин - Сельский крестный ход на Пасхе В. Перова, Утро стрелецкой казни и Боярыня Морозова В. Сурикова, Бурлаки на Волге И. Репина. Пейзажи И. Шишкина можно было увидеть в бесчисленных репродукциях, как в городских квартирах, так и в деревенских избах. Вскоре после Октябрьской революции, в 1923 году, Передвижничество распалось, и ему на смену пришёл официально признанный “социалистический реализм” советской эпохи.
EXERCISE 14. Translate this text into Russian paying special attention to the titles of paintings and the spelling of Russian names. §§ 79.4